Building your own home is incredibly exciting, but it can also be very scary. Especially if you’ve never built a home before. So much rests on you making the right choices and decisions, after all, this is going to be your home. But knowing what choices to make isn’t easy when you’ve never done it before. For this reason, we have put together some handy tips for anyone who is looking to build their own home but has no experience in doing it.
Tip One: Plan for the unexpected
Anyone who has seen Grand Designs knows you can’t predict everything and there is a good chance something, somewhere, will go wrong. But you can plan ahead for this. Think about the things that could hinder your self-build, such as planning permission, or severe weather, and have a backup timeline in place to take into account any time delays. You should also consider things like leaving some room in the budget for any additional costs and having some backup builders and contractors, just in case.
Tip Two: Location
The location of your property is paramount. You need to make sure you live in an area you like, with a community you’d love to live among, while also making sure the property is located close to your work and/or place of education, as well as any other amenities you need. Before you start looking at plots, you need to think about where you are happy to live (or not happy to live).
Tip Three: Research
Before you start doing anything, including planning, do thorough research. Make sure you know exactly what is involved in a self-build, all the elements you will need to plan for and the professional help you’ll need to source. There are lots of self-build events, exhibitions and seminars you can attend where you can talk to other people who have experience in self-building.
Tip Four: Recruit a strong team
If your self-build is going to stay on time and within budget, you will need an excellent team of professionals behind you. Make sure you know exactly what help you need and then do your research. Make sure the contractors and builders you use have experience and good customer feedback. Of course, you can do some things yourself, however, things like electrics and gas do need to be taken care of by a professional. It is important to know your limits.
Tip Five: Arrange your finances
Before you can build your property, you need funding. You need to know how much money you have to build your dream home. Which means you need to secure your funding before any planning begins. Ideally, you should seek funding from a specialist self-build mortgage provider.
Tip Six: Write a brief
This will not just help the professionals you employ to help you with the build, but it will also help you to focus and define exactly what you want your new home to be like. This brief should include a list of your minimum expectations, and details such as number of bedrooms, architectural design, etc. To help create a visual for your design team, you could think about using magazine clippings and any other visual aids you can find to show what you would like.
Tip Seven: Be realistic
You need to set realistic timelines and a realistic budget, otherwise, the build could end up taking much longer and costing more than you expected. As well as taking longer and costing more, you’ll also find the self-build more stressful the more pressure you put on yourself.
Tip Eight: Prepare your self-build plot
Once you have found a self-build plot, you need to access it and start preparing it for the building work. This means sorting out the groundwork, to make sure it is even, removing any vegetation, and clearly and accurately plotting out the trenches needed.
Tip Nine: Make a detailed shopping list
You’re going to need a lot of materials, tools and machinery for your self-build, so make a detailed shopping list. This will help you with budgeting and will make sure you don’t forget something that is essential.
Tip Ten: Enjoy the experience
Remember, building your own home is supposed to be fun. Try to make the whole process as fun and exciting as possible, perhaps even document your self-build so you can look back on it.
Building your own home doesn’t have to be stressful, you just need to plan, think ahead, have a contingency in place and, mostly, enjoy it as much as possible.